Student Internships

General Information

The NIWR-USGS student internship program provides undergraduate and graduate students with career enhancing field, laboratory, and research experience through participation in USGS activities as interns. The program is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Institutes for Water Resources.

On a need basis the USGS through our Science Centers will fund interns hired by the State Water Resources Research Institute. Interns are employees of participating universities and colleges and may be a student from any college or university in the Institute's state.

The internship can span fiscal years (FY). FY 13 funds could, for example, support a student into FY 14 if funds are obligated and work commences in FY 13.

Featured Intern Research Projects

Wesley Brooks - Statistical Protocols for Modeling Water Quality

Wesley Brooks is a Research Assistant for the University of Wisconsin working with the USGS Wisconsin Water Science Center. He has been developing and testing statistical protocols for modeling water quality at recreational beaches. These statistical models are used operationally by beach managers to help protect public health by providing daily predictions of water quality criteria exceedances that are used to post swimming advisories. The latest accomplishment on this work includes contributions to the software package Virtual Beach in cooperation with U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development (http://www2.epa.gov/exposure-assessment-models/virtual-beach-vb). This software is widely used in the U.S. by professionals involved in beach management activities.

Michael Sanders - Modeling of Watershed Systems

Michael Sanders is a Master's student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He is working with the National Research Program project: Modeling of Watershed Systems as a Water Resources Research Institute Intern. He is conducting research and development of a stream temperature module within the USGS Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) hydrologic simulation code. This work involves conversion of the Stream Network Temperature (SNTemp) model into the programming structure within PRMS as a tightly coupled simulation capability that uses PRMS computed values for all meteorology and hydrologic input requirements and produces results available for output using PRMS methods. SNTemp was originally developed by the Soil Conservation Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife agencies and previously has been loosely coupled with PRMS and the USGS Groundwater and Surface water FLOW (GSFLOW) hydrologic simulation codes.

The development was successful in creating a working PRMS executable that predicts daily average values for stream temperature. Description of the module and project has been included in Michael's thesis. A USGS documentation report and journal paper presenting results of validation testing and sensitivity analysis are in preparation.

Sydney Wilson - Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets

As a part of her master’s thesis at Colorado School of Mines and as part of the Water, Energy,
Biogeochemical Budgets (WEBB) project, Sydney Wilson is investigating subalpine groundwater-surface water
exchange throughout the summer and its influence on aquatic carbon concentration and transport
within Andrews Creek, located within the Loch Vale watershed in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Her methods consist of using time-lapse electrical resistivity, continuous temperature monitoring,
and chemical analysis of carbon dioxide, methane, and dissolved organic carbon within the stream
and subsurface. She has also participated in extensive synoptic field campaigns in the Southeastern and
Northwestern United States. These studies were conducted as part of the LandCarbon project to
understand biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nutrients in aquatic ecosystems. Sydney also performed
laboratory analyses of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide, dissolved organic carbon, major ions,
and total dissolved nitrogen at the USGS facility in Boulder, CO.

Institute

The Institute Director in cooperating with the sponsoring USGS office completes the budget page of the Internship Description Form. Budget should include provision for health insurance, immunizations, and safety training if necessary.

Institute Director submits the Internship Description Form, SF-424 (Application for Federal Assistance) and SF-424B (Assurances) through the Internet site at http://www.grants.gov.

A grant is awarded to the Institute (usually within 30 days of receipt) and the Institute employs the intern.